


Home Soon

by stephanericher



Series: SASO 17 [7]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-11-12 20:15:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11169258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/pseuds/stephanericher
Summary: It’s a different kind of feeling, something good, something that pushes on his heart to beat faster, like when he’s about to dunk to end the game.





	Home Soon

**Author's Note:**

> for saso br1, prompt [here](https://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/21522.html?thread=10926866#cmt10926866)

It’s hard for even Tatsuya to hold out his grudge forever. Their dad’s always said he has too much anger in him, but he doesn’t have enough to stay mad at Taiga and about moving back, at least not with the same intensity. But it’s not until they’re several hours into the flight across the Pacific and Tatsuya’s pretending to be asleep in the window seat that Taiga, turning over what Alex had told him in his mind, realizes it’s not just anger and resentment that Tatsuya holds against him. It’s the iron weight of guilt, clawing at himself just as much as it is reaching out to slash Taiga across the face. It’s stupid; Taiga’s long since forgiven him—and, he thinks, Tatsuya’s not so concerned about Taiga throwing the game or anything he’s consciously done. It’s the way he got when they’d first moved to California and he and Taiga had struggled to adjust together, when Taiga had looked at him and for the first time Tatsuya hadn’t quite known the answers, how to ask for something in a foreign tongue, how to act—something he shouldn’t have been sorry for, but had blamed himself all the same.  
  
And even like this, stressed and worried and exhausted from pushing away love—from Taiga, from their dad, even from Alex—Taiga can’t help but think that he looks beautiful, strikingly so. His stomach turns; it must be the turbulence. And fuck it, if Tatsuya’s not going to make it easy for himself Taiga’s going to help him as best he can. He leans over, nudging his arm between Tatsuya’s back and the seat, and rests his head on Tatsuya’s shoulder.   
  
“Home soon,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to Tatsuya’s cheek.

* * *

They play every day on the street court; some days Tatsuya feels better (usually on the days he does better) and some days Taiga can pretend it’s just like it used to be, but after a while even on those days he can’t. Tatsuya’s different; he’s different; even though Tatsuya’s also got his school team, practices and games and running himself ragged, Taiga can see himself pulling ahead and there’s nothing he can do to stop it. Sometimes Tatsuya can deal with it, and when he can’t he all but pushes Taiga away physically.   
  
Taiga waits. He makes dinner; he cleans the house; he starts on his homework. Tatsuya comes out of his room eventually and helps him a little with kanji—he’s not that comfortable himself, but he’d learned more before they’d left and he remembers it with a little more focus, a higher resolution. Sometimes they get to talking, about how much they miss LA (how much it’s really home instead of here, an apartment with years of built-up memories, stains in the kitchen, a certain outline of dust on the windowpane, a familiar route to the street court). This place is cramped and out of the way, unfamiliar and wrong. It only has two bedrooms, like their old apartment in Tokyo had—back then they’d had to share a room, but it had been nice to have Tatsuya to fall asleep with, to whisper things to (the first few weeks in LA the new apartment had felt so empty, just the two of them and their dad and so much space, that Taiga had crawled into Tatsuya’s bed nearly every night and fallen asleep next to the comfort of his deep breathing). And maybe that’s what makes him finally realize, when they’re a month in and it’s still just the two of them.  
  
“Dad’s not coming, is he?”  
  
“Probably not,” says Tatsuya.  
  
“Oh,” says Taiga.  
  
It feels a little empty and hollow, like fully realizing that their mom wasn’t going to come over to LA with them, that this is what they’d chosen (well, Tatsuya had chosen to be with their dad and Taiga had chosen to be with Tatsuya and that had been that). He bumps Tatsuya’s shoulder, and Tatsuya looks at him.  
  
“Hey,” he says. “At least we don’t have to share a room again.”  
  
Taiga’s not going to say anything about that, but Tatsuya sees it on his face. He smiles, gentle and real in a way Taiga’s not sure he’s seen in a long time (and fuck, has he missed it). Taiga reaches out and pulls him into a hug. Tatsuya fits in his arms, noticeably smaller now—when was the last time they’d done this? Taiga doesn’t feel like he’s been growing that much; he still doesn’t feel that much bigger than Tatsuya when he looks at him. It’s a different kind of feeling, something good, something that pushes on his heart to beat faster, like when he’s about to dunk to end the game.   
  
“If you want, we can,” says Tatsuya, but something about the statement misses the mark.  
  
Taiga comes in that night, anyway; Tatsuya looks at him, gaze sharp and unreadable in the low light. He rolls over and makes room for Taiga, anyway; it’s much less cramped on a double bed but it’s still cozy.  
  
“Goodnight,” says Tatsuya, breath in Taiga’s ear.  
  
Taiga rolls over, burrowing his hand under the cover until it finds Tatsuya’s. Tatsuya sighs softly, but lets him lock their fingers together.  
  
“Goodnight,” says Taiga.

* * *

Tokyo gets hot in the summer, but not like LA. There’s no desert breeze, no thin air, no break from the pollution above the mountains. Here there’s nothing but humidity wringing the sweat from everyone’s pores and letting it sit. They lie in Taiga’s room because it’s smaller and cheaper to keep cool, blast the fans so loud they can’t hear themselves talk. It’s maybe even too hot to play basketball, at least until the evenings when Tatsuya grabs his sneakers and a ball and flicks his head toward the door.  
  
Taiga wakes from his nap in the middle of the afternoon, hair slicked back with sweat. Tatsuya’s half-asleep next to him, dog-eared sportswriting anthology lying open on his stomach. His tank top’s riding up; his skin is glowing from the summer sun and his hands are loose, soft, so naturally the way Taiga has to practice (and Tatsuya will never admit it but he does have some advantages when it comes to basketball, but it’s just too complex to quantify and not worth bringing up the way both of them are right now). He is gorgeous, sweaty hair framing his face, the gentle slope of his nose, long eyelashes, lips slightly parted. Blood is pumping through Taiga’s ears, louder than the fan.  
  
“What?” says Tatsuya, cracking his eye open.  
  
Taiga moves in on autopilot, pressing their lips together. He’s never kissed anyone before, never imagined what it’s supposed to taste like—salt and green Gatorade wouldn’t have been his first guess but it’s so Tatsuya, like doing this is filling him with what of Tatsuya isn’t already on his mind, in his heart, at the tips of his fingers.   
  
Tatsuya pushes him off, hard; Taiga’s eyes fly open. He hasn’t seen Tatsuya look this—he would say angry, but maybe hurt is more appropriate—since before they’d left LA.   
  
“Taiga, that’s—we can’t; we’re brothers.”  
  
Brothers aren’t supposed to do that kind of thing, like hold hands after they’d turned nine or kiss each other’s cheeks in public since around the same time or so many of the boundaries Tatsuya had put up, never saying it was because he wanted to but because they ought to, because that’s what’s done. And Taiga’s always taken those sorts of decrees as law from Tatsuya, because Tatsuya’s his brother. But isn’t that, what’s that thing his math teacher’s always talking about? A tautology?   
  
“Yes,” says Taiga. “We can.”  
  
He places his hand on top of Tatsuya’s, still on his chest, and clasps it in his. Tatsuya looks at him, already disguising the ache in his face behind that ever-present placid surface.  
  
“We’re brothers,” Taiga says, reaching his other hand out to Tatsuya’s neck, brushing the mended chain. “I love you. I want you. Please.”  
  
He pulls Tatsuya in, slowly, like raising an anchor, gives him the chance to break away if that’s really what he wants, but Tatsuya doesn’t really resist. He gives in, and this time his mouth tastes sweeter. His body is sticky with sweat, attaching itself to Taiga’s; it feels so damn right and perfect, the way they were made molded to fit together, from the same places, returning to that. The way it should be.


End file.
